on december 2012, senator chuck hagel, the no , ma'am tee to be the secretary of defense sat for an interview with financial times, and when asked about how it's going, secretary pa panetts comments would be disastrous to national defense, senator hagel replied as follows, "the defense department in many ways is bloated. the defense department got everything it wanted the last ten years and more. we've taken priorities, dollars, programs, taken policies out of the state department out of a number of other departments and put them over in defense. the abuse and waste and the fraud is astoppedding. i think the pentagon needs to be paired down. we need the pentagon to look at their own priorities." we are pressed for time so i would, if i could, have the joint chiefs go down the line, quickly, if you can answer with yes or no, whether you agree with the general characterization that the senator made. that'd be great. [laughter] >> let me try it. it's a good question. it's a fair question. i don't -- i can't speak for senator hagel, but my interpretation of that is that it is along the lines of s